OK dear readers, time for a levity break, and thanks (I know, I say it alot) for allowing me in recent posts to cogitate on some simple connections between western and eastern tenets. My jailhouse journals were overflowing with thoughts I needed to “get down on paper,” as it were, and I’m relieved to have been able to filter through them with some sense of cohesion.

This time I’m going to enjoy explaining the title of today’s post and my reciprocal choice of domain name. I may have mentioned that while in lock-up I was perpetually reading the (free) e-books on our loaner tablets, and that in 10 1/2 months I pored through 50+ novels/novellas, story collections, and guide books, everything from the Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to methods for successful ginseng farming (can’t hardly wait!) The 10,000+ volumes were available courtesy of The Gutenberg Project, a volunteer literary service that releases and re-releases books in the public domain. To learn more about their efforts, browse their mammoth catalog of free reads, or even sign-up to transcribe and digitize written works for their library, click here.

Because the publishing rights of many Gutenberg Project titles have expired, their most prominent offerings date back to the “Gilded Age” of literature (mid-nineteenth to early-twentieth centuries) and older. (In some cases, MUCH older; it wasn’t rare to find collections such as “Poems and Ballades of the Scottish Highlands, 1497 – 1589.”) But with adroit navigation of their finical search engine I was rewarded with some real literary gems from many authors, some well-known, some not. For example, I re-read several of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “John Carter of Mars” series as well as other “steam-punk” classics from H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. (It was with great delight that I found and highly recommend a most charming Verne story not based in science fiction; the adventure/drama “Ticket No. 9672.”) For the first time I dove into translations of legendary French tales by Zola and Dumas, and if you haven’t read The Count of Monte Cristo, close this page right now and click here.

I know, I know, back to the title of our post and URL. Of all the “new” authors I discovered, and there were many, my favorite quickly became Ms. Eleanor Hallowell Abbott (1872 – 1958.) Ms. Abbott (who despite marrying a Dr. Coburn, kept her maiden name professionally) was born in Cambridge MA and never strayed from New England, passing away peacefully in Portsmouth, NH at age 85. On the surface, and by design, most of her expertly-crafted stories follow standard Victorian/Edwardian themes and plot lines; well-to-do young man/woman meets and loses humble (yet attractive) lass/lad from modest means, realizes his/her mistake when it’s almost too late, then redeems him/herself at the last minute, and all’s well that ends well. Except Ms. Abbott rarely stopped there: upon careful reading, one can almost always find a twist; a subtle character flaw, an unforeseen wrong turn, or a creative and humorous surprise ending. If you choose to wander onto her literary lawn, might I suggest beginning with her story collection “The Sick-a-Bed Lady” and its slightly-scandalous (for the times) title tome. For Ms. Abbott’s bio and selected bibliography, please click here.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about our title! So while I was filling my marble-covered notebooks in the bunk I would periodically scribble quotes and memorable lines from my readings, and Ms. Abbott’s clever aphorisms rightly took up a whole page. To wit, in her various volumes she advised:

“Never inhale your smile.”

“It is more pleasurable to travel with an outlaw than an in-law.”

“It’s better to be a fugitive from injustice than a fugitive from justice.”

But my all-time favorite remains:

“Never wear a worrisome-looking hat.”

And with that, dah-ling readers, see you tomorrow for tea at 3 in our virtual parlor!